Carrying Commitment Forward

Officially, Saint Louis University established the School of Nursing in 1928, but its roots trace back 50 years earlier. It was 1872 and St. Louis was in the grasp of a smallpox outbreak. A small group of nuns from the Sisters of St. Mary (now the Franciscan Sisters of Mary), arrived to provide care and comfort in densely populated immigrant neighborhoods.

As the order grew, so did its mission. The sisters opened St. Mary’s Infirmary in 1877 and, eventually, St. Mary’s Hospital (now SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital). In 1924, the infirmary became the teaching hospital for Saint Louis University’s School of Medicine. A few years later, W.H. Loeb, M.D., dean of the medical school, wrote national nursing leaders and the Rev. Mother Mary Concordia Puppendahl, superior general of the Sisters of Saint Mary, to discuss creating a nursing school for both the sisters and lay nurses.

At that time, nursing education was an apprentice-type system with student nurses working alongside experienced nurses. While Loeb did not live to realize his vision, his successor, Alphonse Schwitalla, S.J., saw it through. At a formal ceremony 90 years ago, he and the reverend mother signed an agreement to establish the Saint Louis University School of Nursing in the St. Mary’s Infirmary. Most of the instructors were male and most were physicians. Students, who numbered about 30 and were female, spent half their day in classrooms and the other half at the bedside. The school offered two programs – a three-year certificate of nursing and a five-year bachelor of science in nursing.

Today, a majority of the school’s faculty is female. Enrollment exceeds 1,100 students with a strong mix of male, female, local, national and international students. The school offers four degree programs and various specialty options. Several graduates and faculty members have written best-selling textbooks. Graduates have served as presidents of Sigma Theta Tau and several faculty members are fellows in the American Academy of Nursing. Throughout 2018, the school is commemorating its past and celebrating its future, which promises to be as bright as the past 90 years. Here are some of the School of Nursing's historical highlights:

1928

School of Nursing founded and becomes the first nursing school in the Midwest to be affiliated with a university.

1931

First class of religious and lay women graduated.

1941

Sr. Mary Geraldine Kulleck, S.S.M., appointed dean. She is the first nurse to serve as dean.

1947

SON’s first black student, Geneva Smith Taliaferro, B.S.N., graduated.

1956

Cardinal Glennon Memorial Hospital for Children opened.

1965

SON received first United States Public Health Service grant. Nursing research is in its infancy.

1978

New school is dedicated almost 50 years to the day that Schwitalla and Puppendahl signed the agreement to form a school. Faculty and students move from temporary quarters in Glennon Hall, the Nicholas Building and the McDonald Building.

1982

Joan Hrubetz, R.N., Ph.D., appointed first lay dean. She becomes the school’s longest-reigning dean at 22 years.

1997

SON becomes first school within the university to offer an online course.

2018

SON received the largest scholarship gift in its history, $8.4 million dollars which is a transformative gift.

Founded in 1928, Saint Louis University School of Nursing has achieved a national reputation for its innovative and pioneering programs. Offering bachelor's, master's, and doctoral nursing programs, its faculty members are nationally recognized for their teaching, research and clinical expertise.